The Tsar Visits Europe and Members of the Black-Hundred Duma Visit England

Published:Proletary, No. 46, July 11 (24), 1909.

      Published according to the text inProletary.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1973,

      Moscow,Volume 15,

      pages461-466.Translated:Transcription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2004).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

Halfa century ago Russia’s reputation as an international
gendarme was firmly established. In the course of the last century our
autocracy rendered no small support to various reactionary causes in Europe
even to the point of crushing by downright military force the revolutionary
movements in neighbouring countries. One has only to recall the Hungarian
campaign of Nicholas I, and the repeated repressions of Poland, to
understand why the leaders of the international socialist proletariat from
the forties onward denounced tsarism so often to the European workers and
European democrats as the chief mainstay of reaction in the whole civilised
world.

Beginningwith the last three decades or so of the nineteenth century,
the revolutionary movement in Russia gradually altered this state of
affairs. The more tsarism was shaken by the blows of the growing
revolutionary movement at home, the weaker it became as the enemy of
freedom in Europe. But in the meantime another international reactionary
force had taken definite shape in Europe—the bourgeois governments, which
had witnessed insurrections by the proletariat, had realised that a
life-and-death struggle between labour and capital was inevitable, and
would welcome any adventurer or brigand on the throne for the sake of
joining forces against the proletariat. And when, at the be ginning of the
century, the war with Japan and the Revolution of 1905 dealt powerful
body-blows to tsarism, the international bourgeoisie rushed to the rescue,
supporting it with milliards in loans and moving heaven and earth to
localise the revolutionary conflagration and restore “order”in Russia. One good turn deserves another. Tsarism had helped the
counter-revolutionary bourgeois governments of Europe more than once in
their struggle against democracy. Now the bourgeoisie of Europe, which had
become counter-revolutionary in relation to the proletariat, helped tsarism
in its fight against the revolution.

Theallies are celebrating victory. Nicholas the Bloody is going to
Europe to pay his respects to the monarchs there and to the President of
the French Republic. The monarchs and the President are excitedly preparing
to do the honours to the leader of the Black-Hundred counter-revolution in
Russia. But victory fell to these noble knights of Black-Hundred and
bourgeois reaction not because their enemy was destroyed, but because its
forces were split, because the proletariat does not mature simultaneously
in all countries. The victory fell to the united enemies of the working
class at the cost of postponing the decisive battle, at the cost of
widening and deepening the source which—more slowly perhaps than we would
wish, but nonetheless surely—is multiplying the numbers of the
proletarians, increasing their solidarity, steeling them in struggle,
schooling them in operations against the united enemy. This source is
capitalism, which awakened the quondam patriarchal “patrimony” of the
aristocratic Romanovs, and which is now awakening the Asian states, one
after another.

Theallies are celebrating victory. Yet every celebration of Nicholas
the Bloody and the leaders of the bourgeois European governments is
accompanied, echo-like, by the voice of the revolutionary masses of the
workers. “We have crushed the revolution,” cry Nicholas and Wilhelm,
Edward and Fallières, shaking hands with each other under the
protection of a bristling shield of bayonets or a long line of
warships. “We shall overthrow you all together,” replies the revolution
like an echo, through the lips of the leaders of the class-conscious
proletariat of all countries.

Nicholasthe Bloody leaves Russia. He is accompanied by the words of a
Social-Democratic member of the Black-Hundred Duma, who voices the
republican convictions of all the class-conscious workers of Russia and
reminds him of the inevitable downfall of the monarchy. Nicholas arrives in
Sweden. He is fêted in the royal palace. He is greeted bysoldiers and spies. He is met by the speech of the leader of the Swedish
workers, the Social-Democrat Branting, who protests against the
dishonouring of his country by the visit of this butcher. Nicholas goes to
England, to France, to Italy. Kings and courtiers, ministers and policemen
make ready to do him honour. Labour makes ready to meet him—by a meeting
of protest in England, a demonstration of popular indignation in France,, a
general strike on the day which is darkened by his arrival in
Italy. Socialist members of parliament in all three countries—Thorne in
England, Jaurès in France, Morgan in Italy—have already responded
to the call of the International Socialist Bureau, and have declared to the
whole world the hatred and contempt which the working class entertains for
Nicholas the Pogromist, Nicholas the Hangman, the Nicholas who is now
crushing the people of Persia and flooding France with Russian spies andagents provocateurs.

The“respectable” bourgeois press in all these countries is in a
frenzy of rage, not knowing what word of abuse to use next for the actions
of the socialists, what to do next to support the ministers and presidents
who have ruled socialists out of order for their speeches. But their frenzy
is in vain. The parliamentary representatives of the proletariat cannot be
gagged; meetings cannot be stopped in really constitutional countries; the
fact cannot be concealed, either by self-deception or by the deception of
others, that the Russian tsar dare not appear in public whether in London,
Paris or Rome.

Thegrand celebration of the leaders of international re action, their
celebration of the suppression of the revolution in Russia and Persia,has been ruinedby the unanimous and courageous protest of the
socialist proletariat of all the European countries.

Andon the background of this protest by the socialists from
St. Petersburg to Paris, from Stockholm to Rome, this protest against the
tsarist autocracy in the name of the revolution and its principles, all the
more glaring does the despicable servility to tsarism on the part of our
Russian liberals stand out. Several members of the Black-Hundred Duma,
ranging from the moderate Rights to the Constitutional-Democrats, headed by
the Chairman of the Duma,are visiting England. They pride themselves on the fact that they represent
the majority in the Duma, its real Centre, without the extreme Right or the
extreme Left. They are posing as the representatives of a
“constitutional” Russia, singing the praises of the “renovated” order
and the adored monarch who has “granted the people” a Duma. There they
are, like the swelling frog in Krylov’s

fable,[2]puffing themselves up as victors over the Black-Hundred
reaction which, to hear them talk, wants to abolish the “constitution” in
Russia. At a luncheon, given by the Lord Mayor, Mr. Milyukov, leader of the“Constitutional-Democratic”(no joke!) Party, declared in his
speech: “So long as there is a legislative chamber in Russia controlling
the budget, the Russian opposition will remain His Majesty’s Opposition,
and not an opposition to His Majesty” (St. Petersburg News Agency telegram
of June 19, old style). In its leading article of June 21 bearing the

Khlestakovian[3]title “Europe and Renovated Russia”,Golos
Moskvy, mouthpiece of the Octobrist Party, warmly applauds the
utterances of the Cadet leader, declaring that his “moderately
constitutional” speech “marks perhaps a turning-point in Cadet policy, a
renunciation of the abortive tactics of creating opposition for the sake of
opposition”.

Thepolice ragRossiya(June 23) devotes a leading article to
Milyukov’s speech, in which it quotes the “famous” phrase about His
Majesty’s Opposition, and declares: “Mr. Milyukov in England has
undertaken certain responsibilities on behalf of the Russian opposition. If
he fulfils his pledge he will render a service to his country for which he
will be forgiven no small number of his former transgressions.”  Your
services are rewarded, gentlemen of the Cadet Party.Vekhiin
general, and Struve in particular, have been commended by Antonius of
Volhynia, the “Lord Bishop” of the Black-Hundred zealots; Milyukov, the
leader of your party, has been commended by a venal police rag of a news
paper. Your services are rewarded!

Itremains for us to remind the reader that we have been exposing the
Cadets as Octobrists at heart ever since 1906, when gimcrack “victories”
in the Duma turned the heads of many a selfishly-naïve and
disinterestedly-naive person.

Wehave also to remind the reader that thepurposeof
tsarism’s game, now being played so conspicuously in the Third Duma, was
exposed by us overtwenty monthsago inProletary,
Nos. 19 and 20 (November 1907) when we re viewed the results of the
elections to the Third Duma. In the Third Duma as we said, and as was said
in the resolution of the All-Russian Conference of the B. S. D. L. P. in
November 1907twomajorities are possible: the one consisting of
Black-Hundred deputies and Octobrists, the other consisting of Cadets and
Octobrists—andbothof them are counter-revolutionary. “Such a
situation in the Duma,” states the resolution adopted at that time by the
St. Petersburg Social-Democrats (published inProletary, No. 19)
and the resolution of the Third All-Russian Conference of the
R.S.D.L.P. (Proletary, No. 20), “is exceedingly favourable for a
double political game being played by both the government and the

			      Cadets.”[1]

Thisanalysis of the situation has now beenfullycorroborated, showing the short-sightedness of those who were ready again
and again to proclaim Social-Democratic “sup port” for the Cadets.

TheCadets are fighting the Octobrists not as opponents of their
principles, but ascompetitors. The voter must be “won”—we
declare ourselves the party of, “the people’s freedom”. Our
“respectability” must be proved—we boost the Maklakovs in the Third
Duma, we tell Europe through Milyukov that we are “His Majesty’s
Opposition”. And that ’is all that Stolypin, the faithful servant of
Black-Hundred tsarism needs. Let the Black-Hundred tsarist gang run the
country, let them and only them actually decide all the really important
questions of policy. But “we” need the Octobrist Cadet majority for
play-acting, to “represent” us in Europe, to facilitate the raising of
loans, to “correct” the excesses of the Black Hundreds, to dupe
simpletons with “reforms”... that are corrected by the Council of State.

HisMajesty knowshisOpposition. The Cadet Opposition knowtheirStolypin andtheirNicholas. The simple technique
of European parliamentary hypocrisy and chicanery has come easily to both
our liberals and our ministers. Bothare apt students of the methods used by the bourgeois reactionaries of
Europe.

Onboth of them the socialist proletariat of Russia, in growing unity
with the socialist proletariat of the whole world, declares unremitting
revolutionary war.

[1]Seepresent edition, Vol. 13, pp. 138 and 144.—Ed.

[2]Thereference is to Krylov’s table “The Frog and the Ox”.

[3]Khlestakov—the chief character in Gogol’s comedyThe Inspector-General, typifying the unrestrained braggart and
liar.